Palindrome

by Nick Athanasou

  “But not you. It sounds as if you’ve already decided.”

  Liz gave a short laugh. “Come on, Adam. I don’t know how he’s managed to keep his research going all these years. Or rather I do know. He manipulates people and data. This would be just the latest example.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me anyway. It’s the way he works. I know that. He took Forsyth and Taylor in. Anna as well. And now you...”

  “He took you in for a time as well.”

  “I’d just graduated. I was keen to get on.” She laughed. “I would have believed Mickey Mouse if he was offering me the chance to do a D.Phil. at Oxford. I didn’t know any better.”

  Liz’s feeble humour had clearly not progressed beyond its original undergraduate level and Gabriel’s only defence was to sink to that level. “Mickey Mouse wasn’t working on palindromes.”

  “True. But I’ll tell you one thing. It was Matt Taylor and me that did most of the work which led to the Nature publication Palmer has dined out on all these years. Matt made the initial observation that certain palindromes were overexpressed in cancer cell lines. He asked me to make an antibody to see if the proteins coded were expressed in tumours and normal tissues.”

  “And they were expressed in both.”

  “Right. I showed the results to Forsyth and Palmer. Palmer dismissed the results and decided to publish in Nature with Forsyth’s name on it but not mine. He included the antibody data on tumours but not normal tissues. He couldn’t avoid putting Forsyth’s name on the paper for political reasons as they jointly held a grant funding the work. He didn’t have the courtesy or decency to acknowledge my contribution. In a way it was a good thing. Others discovered what I had already. And then came the retraction.”

  “Forsyth’s only retraction of published research. He was always very bitter about that.”

  “He had good reason, believe me. We were all taken for a ride.”

  “Matt Taylor’s name was on that paper.”

  “Matt was in a different position from me. He had to stay quiet about the results. He was a scientist. He was very dependent on Palmer to get on in his career. I knew that I could always fall back on medicine; that I would always have a job.” Her thin face went quite rigid for a moment; she was controlling it. “Matt couldn’t do anything about it.”

  Gabriel nodded. There was a moment of silence.

  “What do we do about the report then?” she asked.

  “Nothing for the moment. I wouldn’t say anything to anyone at Nebotec.”

  Liz nodded.

  “It’s odd though,” Gabriel began, thinking aloud.

  “What?”

  “It’s just that Matt Taylor, on the few occasions I’ve met him, didn’t strike me as someone who was unconvinced about what he was doing. The exact opposite, in fact. Quite excited and keen on the patent possibilities of his research.”

  “Palmer can be very persuasive, you know. He took me in, as I said. And Matt, well, he can be easily led astray. He needs looking after.”

  “I don’t usually have a lot of time for off-beat theories, but he gave a good account of himself when I queried the significance of palindromes, the fact that they are so universal.”

  “He’s really very intelligent. He just hasn’t been allowed to develop that intelligence because he’s been dominated by Palmer for so long.”

  Gabriel had never heard Liz talk so effusively about anyone before.

  “Do you know if he and Anna got on well together?” he ventured.

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  “It was not long after he first met her that they married. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes. I introduced them to each other, in fact.”

  “Her father wasn’t impressed with Anna’s choice.”

  “I’d say that had more to do with Anna than Matt,” Liz said, matter of fact.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Gabriel answered.

  The phone rang.

  “I’m sure of that,” Liz muttered but Gabriel did not hear the words of her reply, only those of the caller, Frances Hewitt.

  The garden was Samant’s favourite part of the house. He loved the greenhouse. He worked in it every afternoon after work. His wife suddenly appeared.

  “Vishant,” she said a little pleadingly.

  “Wait a minute,” Samant grumbled without turning to look toward her.

  He thought that she had gone out with the children to the park. She was always bothering him. If it wasn’t her it was the children. They were noisy, always playing up. You had to threaten them with a good hiding to get them to shut up, to behave properly. And sometimes even that wasn’t enough. When Anna Taylor had helped him deliver the greenhouse, his eldest son had kept getting in the way. He wouldn’t stop shouting and Samant had slapped him. What else could he have done? He had done it for his own good.

  Anna had told his wife to contact her if he ever did it again. That made him feel like a criminal. He had been walking a tightrope ever since.

  “Vishant,” his wife said, almost in tears. “Those two are back again.”

  Samant looked toward her. “Who?”

  “Those two from the police. The man and the woman who talked to you last week.”

  Samant stood up to his full height. He was small but muscular. The hairs on his brown chest were visible through his white shirt.

  “Again?”

  “What’s happened? What do they want?”

  Samant without answering stepped past her. He did not signal for her to follow.

  “Oh hello,” said Samant when he came into the back room where they were waiting for him. “How are you?”

  They looked completely different from the time before when they had come to ask him questions, when the policewoman had smiled and patted the children. Now, neither of them offered to shake hands.

  “Good afternoon,” the policeman said with a grim face before explaining that they needed to ask him a few questions at the police station.

  Samant collected his coat. They closed the front door and frogmarched him down the path. Samant could hear the screams of his children coming from the house. The policeman made him get into the back of the car then sat down next to him. The policewoman got in the front, started the engine and turned the car round in the empty street.

  Samant thought it odd that the policewoman was driving. His own wife did not drive. He had not let her learn even though she said it would have made looking after the children more convenient. The policewoman driving him made him feel more nervous than anything else.

  He wiped his brow. Perhaps it was time to tell all.

  Chapter 18

  Too bad, I hid a boot

  “Professor Gabriel,” Mrs Hewitt began on a warning note, “I am sure that you, being a doctor as well as a scientist, mainain professional standards and appreciate that what I have to say to you must be kept in the strictest confidence.”

  Gabriel nodded and wondered what was coming. Two chunky glasses full of soda water stood between them on a wooden coffee table. He speculated whether one of them would normally have contained whisky.

  There were lots of windows on all sides of the sitting room which looked out on a garden where a strong wind was whipping the trees. Gabriel saw a couple of jackdaws struggle to control their flight; they circled awkwardly and managed to alight on the chimney of a neighbouring house.

  “My husband mentioned at breakfast this morning that you have not yet handed in the pathology report on PLF, the drug being developed at Nebotec. Is that correct?”

  Gabriel nodded, bending forward conscientiously. A veil of red veins spread from the wings of her nose to form a glazed flush under her sharp grey eyes.

  “I can’t emphasise enough to you how important that report is. I should tell you that a lot of my family money is invested in Nebotec, in the success of Nebotec. The share price of the company has fallen significantly in the last week or so, what with all the recent publicit
y. Recovery would be greatly aided by the submission of PLF for a phase one trial to the FDA.”

  “Yes, your husband told me a deal with a very large pharma company was likely to follow.”

  She gave him a crooked smile that reminded him of Ida Lupino in High Sierra.

  “James as usual has been a little boastful or injudicious,” she went on. “Probably both. He does like to push the company.”

  Gabriel was irritated by Frances Hewitt’s tone. She always seemed to be talking down to him. She clearly saw herself as a superior type of person, superior at least to Gabriel in her system of natural selection which, as far as he could tell, was based mainly on accent and money.

  “Then it’s not true? There is no deal.”

  “I didn’t say that,” she answered carefully. “Nothing is settled yet. There are several large companies that are interested in the drugs Nebotec are developing. But it is a little premature to talk about anything definite yet. Though I’m sure it will happen. This is very sensitive information. I’m sure you understand.”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  “What is important is that all the data is provided to the FDA as soon as possible. As James has been asked by the police to remain in the country until the unfortunate matter of Anna Taylor’s death is sorted out, it looks as if I, as one of the directors of Nebotec, will have to go the States and organise the FDA submission. Not the way I wanted it, of course. I’ve enough to do here, as you can imagine.”

  Gabriel couldn’t imagine but he nodded sympathetically.

  “James tells me that there is one key element lacking from this submission and that is your pathology report. Dr Reynolds and you have examined the slides?”

  Gabriel nodded but again said nothing.

  “Then surely you must have come to some conclusion. Were all the tissues of the PLF-treated mice normal?”

  “Oh yes, they were all normal. Virtually all the slides of the tissues we looked at were normal or near normal. But the matter is now out of my hands. I’ve given all the slides to the police.”

  Her face was suddenly expressionless. His silence up to then had only been hinting that things were bad. Now it struck her that they were even worse than she had imagined. Gabriel’s words seemed to break for her the barrier of convention that had existed between them. There was a drawing in of the corners of her mouth as she tried to control her words.

  “But why? I don’t see what bloody reason there can be for the police to concern themselves with the work of the company. James surely told you not to discuss the matter with anyone outside the company.”

  “I really had no choice,” said Gabriel. “There was “the unfortunate matter of Anna Taylor’s death”, as you put it, to consider as well.”

  She eyed him shrewdly through her glasses. Her lips were compressed into a thin line. She was struggling to control her temper and seemed to be considering how best to get her way with him.

  “I don’t wish to be unhelpful,” Gabriel continued. “I was going to suggest to your husband that it might be best if a sort of mini-symposium was held later this week so that Dr Reynolds and I can present our findings. It may be clearer for the company how best to proceed after that. You would of course be welcome to attend.”

  “The sooner the better. This is bloody awkward. A real shambles.”

  She got up and walked over to a small cabinet and withdrew from it a bottle of whisky. Anticipating a refusal, she half-heartedly offered him some before pouring herself a measure to which she added a modicum of soda. The sip she took as she sat down opposite him seemed to revive her momentarily. She gave him an astute smile before speaking again.

  “James tells me that you have not only reviewed the slides but also made some inquiries about them.”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “If you are being employed by the company it naturally has an interest in the nature of those inquiries. It is important that you inform the company before sharing such information with the police.”

  “Wouldn’t that very much depend on the nature of the information?”

  She took a sip of her drink then set it down on the table.

  “Possibly, but as I said, there are a number of sensitive issues to consider in this matter.” Rather reluctantly, she added, “Nebotec is very keen to protect its sole rights to develop drugs that act on the PLF palindrome.”

  Gabriel disliked Frances Hewitt, disliked her posh-posh voice. He was irritated by the way she always seemed to be talking down to him and was determined to give her a hard time.

  “Is there a problem with that?” he asked.

  “No, not at all,” she answered defensively. “Our patent lawyers have been very actively involved from the beginning of this project.”

  Gabriel suddenly had a thought. “I was aware that Anna Taylor had questioned some of the experimental results. May I ask if she had also questioned their originality?”

  For a moment Frances Hewitt looked at a loss what to say. “I had not heard that she did. But I would not be surprised to hear it. She was trouble, that girl, Nothing but trouble.”

  “But it seems pretty clear that she did have doubts about some of the results and that the staff at Nebotec, your husband included, were concerned by them.”

  She looked away from him. Gabriel pursued his momentary advantage. “Indeed, your husband seems to have made a considerable effort to allay her doubts.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, colouring suddenly.

  Partly in revenge for the superior tone she had adopted with him earlier, he went for her with all he had. “Well, your husband was present at Nebotec on the night of the murder. Isn’t that right, Mrs Hewitt?”

  Gabriel paused. She did not reply.

  “And you are being blackmailed by Vishant Samant who saw him there and threatened to tell the police that he saw him enter the laboratory building?”

  She stared at him and went scarlet as if in response to a blow. He saw the grey roots of her dyed hair. She waited a few seconds before responding, first picking up her glass.

  “You have a very lively imagination, Professor Gabriel.”

  “Not really, Mrs Hewitt. I’m just well informed.”

  She held the glass tightly, a suggestion of suppressed violence. Gabriel suspected that she wouldn’t hesitate to throw it at him if he kept on at her in this way. She was, he concluded, the type to commit bloody murder to protect what she had.

  “I must say that you have quite a nerve coming into my house and making such an accusation. It would be more straightforward to ask my husband these questions.”

  “I’ll do that in due course, if the police haven’t already. Would you like me to tell him anything?”

  “There is the question of protecting other people. I have a son at school.”

  “There’s also the question of murder, which is a serious business.”

  She lit a cigarette with a sharp angular movement. She was not an ugly woman but she gave the impression of ugliness with the abrupt way she looked, moved and spoke.

  “I accept that,” she said and regarded him darkly for a moment as if assessing how much she should tell him. “I’m sure you have been told all manner of rumours about James and Anna Taylor. Perhaps it’s best that you should hear the truth from me.”

  Gabriel put down his glass.

  “James comes from a wealthy family. He does a lot of travelling in his business and he meets a very large number of people, including young women. I have always accepted that he would be subject to a certain amount of temptation. I can tell you that in the circles where I grew up that sort of thing is considered normal.”

  Was he about to hear, Gabriel wondered, the latest in the long canon of Hewitt indiscretions?

  As though she had read his thoughts she went on, “Of course I can spot them. They’re all the same. Pretty, little simpering types. Always smiling. She was no different. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth...”

  Gabriel found himself le
ss taken aback than he expected by what Frances Hewitt had to say. He resented the way she rubbed it in though. She seemed to be trying to make out that she was the injured party; holier than thou, unjustly wronged, and better than she actually was. She did not directly refer to Anna Taylor by name and to clarify whom she meant he found it necessary to ask at one point, “You mean Anna Taylor?”

  She gave no sign of assent but somehow made it clear whom she was referring to by not contradicting him and continuing in the same vein, “You mustn’t imagine James thought much of her. She was just factory floor, after all. It was just business — what happens in business, I mean.”

  Gabriel did not like the way she spoke about Anna. As much to clarify to himself his real feelings about Frances Hewitt as to get the truth, he asked, “Mrs Hewitt, do you have a specific accusation against Anna Taylor?”

  “But what I am telling you is the absolute truth. That girl set out to trap James. She was very ambitious. You knew her. Would you not agree?”

  Gabriel did not wish to show that he did agree but he struggled not to indicate his assent.

  “How long had “relations” as you call them, between your husband and Anna Taylor been going on?”

  “Almost from the time she started working at Nebotec. She saw him as the real power there. The way to get on. She was entirely unprincipled as you would expect someone like her to be.”

  “And the slides?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. James never mentioned...”

  “Do you know if your husband conspired to alter the results of the pathology on the PLF-treated mice?”

  “What are you saying?” she whispered. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  Gabriel suddenly wanted to hurt her, to break the last of her will, to remove her utterly as an enemy.

  “Only what I have just said. That the police have suspected for some time that the slides Anna was looking at the night she was murdered were tampered with. Your husband was at Nebotec at the time. And it is true, isn’t it Mrs Hewitt, that Samant saw your husband entering the laboratory building the night Anna Taylor was murdered?”